Recipe
Potato chips
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How to
Frying foods
Crispy & Crun Contents 04 The Crispy-Bottomed Rice Dishes of the World Guo ba, hkaka, kazmag, socarrat, and more. By SARAH GREY
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Why Humans Are Crazy for Crispy An anthropological look at why humans crave crispy food. BY JOHN S. ALLEN
14 How to Make Crispy, Golden Brown, Delicious Fried Foods Fry like a pro! BY ALISON ROMAN
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Fried Recipes
Cereal Sonnets
Craft
Home made potato chips and fritto misto FROM BON APPETIT MAGAZINE
“He likes it,” cry the masses! Trumpets bray! I love Life, too, and love it more each day. By LUCAS PETERSON
How to Build a Vacation Home Made of Snacks By ANNA HEZEL & GABRIELLA PAIELLA
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The CrispyBottomed Rice Dishes of the World By SARAH GREY
There is no single word in English for the crispy rice at the bottom of the pot. It’s our language’s failing that we haven’t come up with a word for that almost-universally beloved component: the nutty, golden, shatteringly delicate crust at the bottom of the rice pot. The rest of the world has not been so negligent. Riceloving cultures around the world have their own nicknames for the deliciously crispy bits. Here’s a sampling. 6
Recipe
Potato chips
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China
Iran
guo ba
tahdig
Literally, this means “pan scrapings.” Guo ba (called by the corrupted name wor bah on many U.S. menus) is actually the dish made with fan jiu, the rice at the bottom of the pot (people often rig the autoshutoff button on rice cookers to get this layer!). It’s then fried and served, still sizzling, in a soup.
From the Farsi tah (bottom) and dig (pot), tahdig is a name for the crust that forms on Persian jeweled rice pilaf (or the bottom of flatbread or roasted potatoes). The dish is cooked in a round pot and turned upside down onto a platter for serving, so diners must break into the golden crust to reveal the treasures—dried fruit, nuts, and candied orange peel—underneath.
Laos: nam khao This Laotian dish combines khao, rice, with nham or som moo, fermented or pickled pork. It originated with burnt rice from the bottom of the pot, but today the rice is crisped deliberately, fried in balls like Italian arancini—and then broken up into bits, combined with som moo, fish sauce, lime, and cilantro, and eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves as a sour-sweet rice salad.
Iraq
Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan:
hkaka
kazmag
This Baghdadi term is a regional and onomatopoeic word—hkaka is the sound a metal rice spatula makes as it scrapes the rice from the bottom of the pot. The same word is used whether you’ve toasted the rice on purpose or just accidentally burnt dinner.
In Central Asia, plov (also pilaf or pulao) is a staple one-pot dish of rice mixed with meat, vegetables, onion, and spices—not unlike South Asia’s biryani. Uzbek and Azeri cooks use the kazmag as a deliberate strategy to keep the rest of the rice from sticking, putting a cup or so of oil-coated rice (often with an egg) around the sides of an iron pot before cooking. It’s often soaked with melted butter for extra richness, then served with the plov.
Korea:
Senegal:
nurungji
xooñ
Meaning “scorched,” this word describes a phenomenon well known to lovers of Korean stone-pot dishes, in which the rice keeps cooking as the diner eats, growing crisper and more golden. Hot water is added to the nurungji after the meal and served as a tea (possibly a holdover from hard times, when the extra calories made a difference in children’s diets). It’s also used to flavor ice cream in Seoul.
This Wolof word is part of Senegal’s peppery national dish, ceebu jën (literally “rice and fish”), which can be found everywhere, from restaurants to home kitchens to street vendors. An informal survey found that 90 percent of Senegalese eat ceebu jën at home weekly. The crispy rice is served on the side or below the fish. During the Wolof empire, this dish spread far and wide; it’s now popular all over Africa and is often called jollof rice (another term for “Wolof”).
Dominican Republic: concón White rice cooked in a cast-iron caldero will form a thick crust that holds its shape when served with beans or stewed beef.
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Crispy-Bottomed Rice
Colombia and Puerto Rico:
Spain
pegao
socarrat
Also pega. Both terms come from the Spanish pegado, literally “stuck” or “glued”—the verb for “to glue” is pegar. In Colombia, the pega is served as a side or for breakfast as leftovers, usually topped with a fried egg; in Puerto Rico, it’s usually served with beans.
Ecuador and Colombia: cocolón This dish from Colombia and Ecuador is believed to derive from the Quechua word kukayo, which means rations for traveling long distances. Usually this would involve coca leaf as well as food—both crucial for covering lots of difficult ground on foot. (If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, you can stop wondering what the Elves put in lembas bread.)
Derived from the Catalan verb socarrar, “to singe.” Just as pie can be judged by its crust and roast chicken by its skin, a good paella can be judged by its socarrat, that beautiful, brown bottom layer where all of the flavors soak into the rice and caramelize. Getting it right is tricky, but the basic rule is, don’t stir!
Indonesia: intip This Javanese word means “dried rice crust,” and it’s a popular snack in Java. The crust is removed from the pan whole, as a round disc, then refried and topped with salt or melted brown sugar. A similar, smaller rice cracker called rengginang is also sold in stores across Indonesia.
Vietnam: com cháy This Vietnamese term means “burnt rice,” but it’s often burnt on purpose. Glutinous sticky rice is cooked, then rolled out in a metal pan and cooked to achieve maximum browning. The resulting cakes are often topped with cottony dried pork floss, a little sugar, chili powder, and scallions for the dish com cháy chà bông.
Philippines: dukot About a quarter of Filipinos speak Cebuano, and many more disable their rice cookers’ auto-shutoff button to get dukot. Because the U.S. occupied the Philippines for nearly fifty years, the English spoken here is American English—and since Americans don’t have an equivalent term, the word dukot also sometimes serves among Cebuano speakers as a symbol for cultural ideas that just can’t be translated.
Japan: okoge This term, which means “burnt” or “overcooked,” refers to the crust formed in the clay pots that were commonly used to cook rice before electric rice cookers came along.
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Crispy-Bottomed Rice
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By John S. Allen
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How to
Frying foods
At any run-of-the-mill Japanese restaurant in North America, the menu features such traditional items as tempura, tonkatsu, and kara-age chicken. This crispy trio has long had an important place in Japanese cuisine. But it is surprising to find out that all three are cultural borrowings, some dating back to time periods when Japan went to great lengths to isolate itself from foreign influences. Recipe
Potato chips
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The batter-frying tempura technique (used typically for vegetables and shrimp) was borrowed from Spanish and Portuguese missionaries and traders in the 15th and 16th centuries. Tonkatsu is a breaded pork cutlet, a version of the schnitzel from Germany and Central Europe, which was added to Japanese cuisine probably no later than the early part of the 20th century. Kara-age originally meant “Chinese frying” and refers to deep-frying foods that have been coated with corn starch. In The Babbo Cookbook, the celebrity chef and restaurateur Mario Batali wrote, “The single word ‘crispy’ sells more food than a barrage of adjectives...There is something innately appealing about crispy food.” If crispy food really is innately appealing, that might help explain why Japanese cuisine was so receptive to these particular “outside” foods. In turn, it is quite possible that crispy dishes such as tempura and tonkatsu were gateway foods for the worldwide acceptance of squishier Japanese delicacies, such as sushi. Tortilla chips, potato chips, French fries, fried chicken, and other crispy items may serve as the advance guard in the internationalization of eating throughout the developed (and developing) world. Crispy conquers cultural boundaries. The hypothesis that crispy foods are innately appealing is a fascinating one. As an anthropologist interested in the evolution of cognition and the human diet, I think that maybe our attraction to crispy foods could give us insights into how people have evolved to think the food that they eat.
Eating has been as critical to human survival as sociality, language, and sex and gender roles have, but it has not received much interest from evolutionary psychologists and other scientists interested in behavioral evolution. What we eat is, of course, shaped by culture, which influences the range of foods that are deemed edible and inedible in any given environment. But eating and food choices have also been shaped by millions of years of evolution, giving us a preference for certain tastes and textures, as well as a desire to eat more than we should when some foods are readily available. One place to start trying to understand the appeal of crispy foods is to look at their sources in the natural world. What are the crispy foods that our current primate cousins and past primate ancestors might eat or have
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“For primates like likely fallback foo vegetables, migh make relatively c foods more accep preference for cri eaten? There are two main sources of crispy in the natural environment of primates: insects and certain parts of plants (especially stalks, some leaves, pods, perhaps roots). Insects get mixed reviews among contemporary humans. In the Western world, they are generally held to be highly unappetizing and associated with filth and disease. In many other cultures, however, insects are eaten with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Sometimes they are eaten in grub form, which is not very crispy, but adult insects, with their crunchy exoskeletons of chitin, are enjoyed in many cultures, often well-seasoned and fried to an extra-crispy state. No human—no reasonably large-bodied primate, for that matter—can survive on a diet of insects alone. It is just not nutritionally practical. Some small prosimian primates, such as lorises, galagos, tarsiers, and the smaller lemurs, can get by on diets that are almost entirely insectivorous. Such primates are similar in size and habits to the original primates, which lived some 60 million years ago. Most paleoanthropologists believe that insects were an important part of the diet of those earliest primates. So we have insect-eating ancestors, even if some of us are not all that enthusiastic about eating them today. Many people are also not all that enthusiastic about eating vegetables. Unlike fruits, many of which are sweet and juicy, enticing animals to eat them as a means of seed dispersal, the parts of the plant that we usually think of as vegetables often contain toxins to discourage animals from eating them. They are also relatively low in nutrient content. Now, many animals, including some major groups of primates, have evolved digestive specializations that allow them to get by on a diet
Crazy For Crispy
us, the attractive quality of ods, such as insects and fresh ht be crispiness. Crispy may common, unpalatable fallback ptable, and an ‘innate’ ispy could be adaptive.” of leaves and stalks. However, our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, are largely fruit eaters, consuming leafy vegetation and insects to supplement their preferred diet (meat is also eaten enthusiastically but in relatively small quantities). Nonpreferred foods that an ape or monkey eats when other foods are not available are called “fallback foods” by primate ecologists. It is clear that humans and other primates have evolved preferences for sweet and salty tastes, and very likely also for fat and umami, the savory flavor associated with meat and some other foods. By definition, fallback foods do not push the preference buttons, since they are not preferred. However, all animals at some point face situations where preferred foods are not available or are insufficient. Attraction to some quality of the most available fallback foods would be adaptive. For primates like us, the attractive quality of likely fallback foods, such as insects and fresh vegetables, might be crispiness. Crispy may make relatively common, unpalatable fallback foods more acceptable, and an “innate” preference for crispy could be adaptive. At some point in human evolution, maybe well over a million years ago, our ancestors discovered and learned how to use fire. According to the primatologist Richard Wrangham, this was one of the most momentous events in human evolutionary history. It opened up the potential diet of these early humans, allowing them to make better use of the whole animals they hunted or scavenged. No longer were they limited to the soft bits, such as brain, liver, and marrow; now they could cook (and thus tenderize) the fibrous muscle that makes up most of the nutrient content of an animal. Fire also allowed for the cooking of tough roots, another source of calories not exploited by other apes or hominids.
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Cooking also made available to humans a whole new range of crispy and, maybe more important, intensely flavored foods. Heating facilitates the Maillard reaction, in which carbohydrates and amino acids combine to produce an array of flavors and aromas (and brown color). In dry-heat cooking, such as grilling, baking, and frying, the Maillard reaction occurs on the surface of the meat or vegetable, leading to enhanced flavors and a crispy crust. As Wrangham argues, the nutritional advantages provided by cooking undoubtedly made it a critical step in human evolution. But cooking also combined crispness with more-appealing flavors (compared with the crispy fallback foods), which may have helped the practice of cooking become even more adaptive.
Fallback foods and cooking provide the evolutionary foundations for the appeal of crispy foods, but what can we say about their appeal today in the developed world, where fallback foods and fire are not really a concern? One thing that crispy and crunchy foods do is enhance the sensory experience of eating. Obviously, when we eat, we use our senses of taste and smell, as well as the sense of touch as we assess the texture and “feel” of the food both in our hands and in our mouths. An underappreciated component of the eating experience is sound.
Crazy For Crispy
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“it is not unreasonable to suggest that we might like a particular crispy food in part because we like the way it sounds in our own heads.” The external sounds of the eating experience are a concern to some restaurateurs. (Diners, assaulted by loud or horrible music, may wish it was a concern to more of them.) And, of course, many cultures dictate the acceptable amount of noise a diner should make while eating. While Western etiquette experts try to stamp out the “gross noises” of eating (see emilypost.com), in other cultures enthusiastic noisemaking while eating is a sign that the food is being enjoyed. Crispiness may be more important for the sounds it makes inside our heads. The internal noises of chewing are always there when we eat, but actually these are typically the sounds we stop hearing. A common feature of all neural sensory systems is habituation—sensory neurons usually become less responsive with persistent exposure to a stimulus. When you put clothes on, after awhile your skin no longer feels that they are there. Similarly, there is habituation to the taste and smell of food as we eat. Celebrated chefs such as Thomas Keller and Ferran Adrià combat sensory habituation by serving many small, varied dishes over the course of a long (and expensive) meal. As many regretful Thanksgiving eaters know, the variety of foods served in traditional feasts also make it possible to eat more by reducing the impact of sensory habituation. Perhaps one reason that crispy foods have such an appeal lies in their ability to stimulate our hearing as well as our senses of taste and smell. Crispiness in and of itself stands apart from other food qualities; this texture can be pleasurable even when combined with flavors that are themselves not necessarily all that appealing. Chewing crispy foods is louder than chewing noncrispy foods. If habituation takes longer given a stronger sensory signal, then we should enjoy eating crispy foods for a lon-
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ger period of time during any given bout of eating. Of course, numerous factors are important in determining what we like to eat, but it is not unreasonable to suggest that we might like a particular crispy food in part because we like the way it sounds in our own heads. Spoken language makes a significant contribution to the sound environment in which most people live. When spoken or voiced internally, the sounds of words such as “crispy” and “crunchy” are evocative of the qualities they are describing—they are onomatopoeic. The etymology of “crispy” is complex; it seems to have originally meant curvy or wavy, but whatever its origins, it is most commonly used as an adjective for brittle foods. It is clear that the sound of “crispy” is not identical to the sounds that crispiness makes (which is true of most onomatopoeic terms, in fact), but for some reason it evokes that sound to our ears. Similarly, the word “crunchy,” which is widely acknowledged to originate in onomatopoeia, evokes an even more profound, and perhaps less refined, sense of this quality. Onomatopoeia may be one reason that “crispy” is such an effective menu term. Functional neuroimaging research on onomatopoeic terms has shown that when listeners hear those terms, they show activation in the parts of the brain that may also be active when they are actually experiencing the action or emotional state the term evokes. Similarly, hearing onomatopoeic terms associated with walking (of which there are several in Japanese) causes activation in the parts of the brain associated with the visual processing of body actions. Other imaging studies have shown that only thinking about doing a motor action will activate the parts of the brain that actually come into play when doing the action.
Crazy For Crispy
The implications for crispy and crunchy in all this now begin to take shape. Simply reading, hearing, or saying the onomatopoeic terms “crispy” and “crunchy” is likely to evoke the sense of eating that type of food. Presumably this feeling would be represented in the brain by activation of the mouth and tongue regions of the primary motor cortex (and of course, when a word is actually said, the motor regions of the mouth are being directly activated). “Crispy” might be such a compelling descriptive term because, in a sense, hearing or saying it strongly promotes the motor imagery of eating—a food item with the word “crispy” attached to it is in some ways already being eaten by its potential consumer. “Crispy” in a menu could be quite persuasive, especially when coupled with the fact that crispy foods are often quite palatable for other reasons. So, are we any closer to understanding the “something” that makes crispy food innately appealing? Why are we crazy for crispy? The human species has numerous ancestors and relatives for whom a crispy insect was and is an attractive meal. Some of our kindred species feast on raw, crispy vegetables, and for those species for which leaves and stalks are not a first choice (and we humans would be in that category), a preference for those foods is quite useful if we need to survive on fallback foods. In short, we have an evolutionary legacy as primates that suggests that crispy and crunchy foods should be attractive to us, at least sometimes and under certain conditions. With the advent of cooking, dietary conditions changed drastically. Crispy became available to our ancestors via the Maillard reaction. Cooking made the nutrients in meat and certain plant foods, such as tubers, more available to us and more palatable as well. Our ancestors who liked crispy cooked foods may have done particularly well in the reproductive sweepstakes, since cooking allowed greater access to a whole range of high-quality food items in varied environments. And so our innate liking for crispy, derived from our distant relatives, may have been reinforced in more recent evolutionary times.
ing them part of a meal. That would be an unexpected consequence of having a brain that is wired for language while still profoundly influenced by cognitive processes that occur well below this higher cognitive level. There are other possible reasons why crispy may be so appealing, of course. In the modern food environment, commercially produced crispy foods are ubiquitous and strongly promoted—and, at the same time, demonized as leading to obesity. These foods, or at least some of them, are “bad.”
But as many of us are aware, doing something bad, as long as it is not too bad, can be pleasurable in and of itself. Eating a bag of potato chips may be enjoyable not just because it delivers salt, fat, and carbohydrate in a nice, crispy package, but also because of the frisson of illicit pleasure it confers in a hectoring, contradictory nutritional culture. How we think food and how we eat food are complex products of multiple histories. These cognitive, evolutionary, and cultural histories interact in unique ways in each individual, who brings to the table a personal history as well. Crispy foods are certainly not the only type of food that humans find appealing, and of course some people do not even like them. But the pervasive appeal of crispy is clearly something that emerges out of our multiple, interacting histories.
Crispy foods may further, in various small ways, have a privileged place in the brain. They incorporate hearing into the sensory mix of eating, and it is very likely that the stronger and more varied sensory mix provided by crispiness staves off boredom and habituation while we eat these foods. And as we just discussed, the word “crispy” itself may increase the appeal of such foods, at least when we are contemplating mak-
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John S. Allen is a research scientist at the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center and the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. This essay is adapted from his new book from Harvard University Press, The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship With Food.
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How to Make Crispy, Golden Brown, Delicious Fried Foods We get it: Frying can be intimidating. The hot oil, the risk of soggy food, the worry that you’ll blacken something into oblivion. So why are we crazy about frying for a crowd? Picture guests arriving to your dinner or cocktail party greeted by a platter of hot, crispy vegetables and seafood. And these? Just some homemade potato chips. Your company will thank you, beg for more, and ask how you pulled it off. The truth is, you don’t need a fryolator or a hazmat suit—or the stress. You just need a little planning and some oil intel, which we’ll happily share. Read on, then fry, fry away. Safety First! You’ve got a vat of boiling oil, so don’t be careless. A few rules to fry by: 1. Make sure there are at least 3 inches from the surface of the oil to the top of the pot so that when the oil bubbles up, it doesn’t bubble over. When in doubt, use a bigger pot. 2. When frying in a pot with a handle, make sure the handle is tucked to the side—never sticking out over the stove—so no one knocks into it and tips the pot. 3. Gently lower food into the pot. This is not the time to make a splash.
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Frying Foods
Get Ready to Roll. There are a few things you’ll need before you take the plunge. 1. WORKSPACE & THE RIGHT OUTFIT Clear the area around the stove to defend against grease splatters (maybe throw some newspaper on the countertop, too). Dress the part with an apron: You can wipe oil off of kitchen counters; a silk blouse, not so much.
4. THE OIL Neutral, affordable oils like vegetable, peanut, canola, and corn are best. Depending on how much you’re frying, you’ll need anywhere from 6 to 10 cups of oil. Better to have too much than not enough, so spring for the extra bottle.
2. THE POT You want one that conducts heat well, is wide enough to fry without overcrowding, and high-sided so bubbling oil stays in the pot. A Dutch oven is perfect, but the size depends on what’s on the menu.
5. THE WIRE RACK It allows air to circulate, keeping food crisp (steam leads to sog). Place it inside a rimmed baking sheet to catch any drips, then lay a few paper towels on top to absorb excess oil.
3. THE THERMOMETER Pick a deep-fry/candy thermometer that clips onto the pot. We prefer analog ones, like Taylor’s 12” version.
6. A MESH SPIDER It works for pretty much everything, but so will a slotted spoon (make sure it’s heatproof!).
Choose Your Recipe Wisely
Save that Oil! Don’t let all the used oil go to waste. Let it cool completely in the frying pot, then strain into a glass jar. Store in a cool, dark place. The life span of the oil will vary depending on what you fried (if it was seafood, toss it), but you should be able to reuse it three or four times. When the oil is dark or has pieces you can’t strain out, it’s spent. Check to see if your town recycles cooking oil. If not, throw it away in a container.
If you’re frying when entertaining, pick a manageable workload. (A little fried food is fun; a lot, and you won’t see your guests much.) See Crispiest potato chips recipe on pg.12!
How To
Frying Foods
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Crispiest Potato Chips
Fritto Misto
Ingredients 1½ lbs russet or purple potatoes ½ C distilled white vinegar 8 C Vegetable oil (for frying) Kosher salt
Special Equipment A deep-fry thermometer
makes 6 servings makes 6 servings Preparation
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Fit a medium heavy pot with thermometer; pour in oil to measure 4”. Heat over medium-high until thermometer registers 350°.
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Meanwhile, whisk flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and ½ tsp. salt in a large bowl. Whisk in club soda just to blend (a few lumps are okay; just don’t overmix). Dip onefourth of mixed vegetables, citrus, seafood, and herbs into batter, letting excess drip back into bowl.
Preparation
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Slice potatoes about ¼” thick (a mandoline helps). Place in a large bowl, add cold water to cover, and stir to release starch; drain. Repeat until water runs clear. Return potatoes to bowl; cover with ½ cup distilled white vinegar and 6 cups water. Let sit at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours. Drain; pat dry.
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Fit a medium heavy pot with thermometer; pour in oil to measure 4”. Heat over medium-high until thermometer registers 300°.
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Working in 6 batches and returning oil to 300° between batches, fry potatoes, turning occasionally to cook evenly, until golden brown and crisp (oil will have quit bubbling), about 5 minutes per batch. Using a spider or slotted spoon, transfer to a paper towel–lined wire rack. Season with salt. DO AHEAD: Potatoes can be fried 6 hours ahead. Keep at room temperature.
Recipe
Potato Chips
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Fry, turning occasionally to cook evenly and gently, separating as needed, until golden and crisp, 1–3 minutes.
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Using a spider or slotted spoon, transfer to a paper towel–lined wire rack; season with salt. Repeat three more times with remaining ingredients, returning oil to 350° between batches.
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Serve with lemon wedges.
Ingredients 8 C Vegetable oil 1 C all-purpose flour 1 C cornstarch 1 t baking powder ½ t kosher salt, plus more 2 C chilled club soda ¼ small squash (such as kabocha), scrubbed, very thinly sliced
½ small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced lengthwise
4 oz large shrimp, peeled, deveined, halved lengthwise
1 leek, white and pale-green parts only, halved lengthwise, layers separated
4 oz squid or baby octopus tentacles
2 oz maitake or shiitake mushrooms, trimmed, torn into bite-size pieces 1 lemon, very thinly sliced into rounds, seeds removed, plus wedges for serving
½ C fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves with tender stems ¼ C fresh sage leaves
Special Equipment A deep-fry thermometer
Recipe
Fritto Misto
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Story
Cereal Sonnets
Cereal Sonnets By Lucas Peterson
“He likes it,” cry the masses! Trumpets bray! I love Life, too, and love it more each day.
These Lucky Charms have never brought me luck; Purple horseshoes unfit for horse to wear; Arent four-leaf clovers meant for man to pluck? And these blue diamonds’ shape is oddly square. The color of the milk this cereal leaveth (Two minutes e’er scamp Lucky kiss my bowl) An unappealing gray that make men heaveth And on my bowels later leaves its toll. I’ve never seen a leprechaun in person; In aisle of grocery store do we ne’er meet. I think instead of bless he laid a curse on My teeth that rot from chow so shocking sweet And yet, by God, tasty beyond belief; That I would steal them from him and turn thief.
The glory of many a dawn I’ve seen When I and my friend, Mikey, dine together; In spring, when birds doth sing and hills turn green Through bitt’rest and most frigid winter weather. He was skeptical at first, as was I: A non-descript lattice so brown and square. The faintest gleam of sugar catcheth eye; Beyond that, though, most drab beyond compare. But Mikey takes a bite, and then another He turns to me, his eyes light up with bliss I try, too, for I trust him like my brother I know his tastebuds shan’t lead mine amiss “He likes it,” cry the masses! Trumpets bray! I love Life, too, and love it more each day.
Down corridors of childhood I wander; My mother’s voice inside my head doth ring. When cereal options she and I do ponder, I, wriggling in my shopping cart, do sing: “Sweet sugar, give me sugar!” my lungs cry; Cloying loops and sweet flakes do I desire; A pebble made of fruit, perhaps; I sigh, Made mad by Sugar Bear and Tony Tiger The Apple Jack doth call my name, but no, My mother sternly reprimands my reach “That garbage does near our pantry go! And lessons in good eating I must teach.” Bland, tasteless Kix are bought as compromise; We leave the store; hot tears doth burn my eyes.
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Potato chips
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How to Build a Vacation Home Made of Snacks By ANNA HEZEL & GABRIELLA PAIELLA
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t was a long winter, and now you need a vacation. Nothing too fancy—just you, the wife, and the kids, packing up the car with nonperishable organic goods and getting back in touch with nature. Heck, what better time than now to dust off the acoustic guitar you haven’t played since college? The kids will like that, probably. You can just see it: all of you relaxing in a simple cabin out in the woods. Or, even better, a regal Airbnb with electricity and plumbing that has an outdoor fire pit and a carefully paved path down to the lake. Realizing that there is a vast, insatiable, and somewhat inexplicable market for cabin-ogling, paying to borrow other people’s mansions, savory dioramas, and pretzel engineering, we recently got to work on a prototype of what we like to call our Snack Mansion.
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Snack Vacation Home
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Snack Vacation Home
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1
Cut a small square-shaped tissue box in half. Set the bottom half on a baking sheet or remote mountaintop.
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Break several thick pretzel sticks in half. Douse one side of each in Elmer’s glue, and press it to the base of the tissue box until the glue begins to dry. (If you think this is gross, just know that we first tried this using peanut butter as an adhesive, and it melted.) Continue to add pretzel logs until the tissue box is covered with the wood paneling you desire.
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Now fold a roof-looking piece of cardboard in half. Cover it with glue, and cover the glue with CheezIts. Cheez-Its are kind of heavy and cumbersome, so they may take a little while to dry in place. Just remind yourself that roofing is an investment.
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While those are drying, arrange five or six thin pretzel sticks on the front of the house to make a door with a cute little wasabi-pea doorknob.
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Make a tiny fire pit by gluing two small pretzel sticks into an X. Arrange some Doritos shards so that they look like flames. Tune your acoustic guitar.
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Put the finishing touches on your vacation fantasy by adding the roof to the cabin, spreading some dried seaweed to make a lake, and building a path to the lake using Cheez-Its. Welcome to your new life.
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Crush a bunch of other wasabi peas with a mortar and pestle. You can use a food processor if you want, but the mortar and pestle is more authentic. Sprinkle the peas around the house liberally to create grass for your imaginary family to play on.
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e spent over an hour trying to construct this salty cabin using peanut butter as an adhesive, and we made a huge scientific breakthrough: peanut butter melts. And so did our cabin. Gabriella kept trying to tell Anna this, but Anna forged on, ignoring her, and Gabriella had the last laugh. (She has issues!) But who could blame us for trying to build a new life out of edible materials? The other hurdle we faced is one that we’ve experienced before. We’re no strangers to hot-dog-water smell or tacoseasoning-scented hands, but we naively thought that our crunchy vacation home would be different—gentler on the nose, even aromatically pleasing. You know how homes and businesses with elaborate gingerbread houses on display around the holidays always smell kind of nice? You know how even at its stalest, gingerbread has a generally pleasant scent? The same cannot be said of a mass of artificial cheese powder, wasabi, and glue after it has been sitting in your home for twenty-four hours.
Craft
Snack Vacation Home
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Recipe
Potato chips
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Issue 01
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How to
Fall 2016
Frying foods